New Work from Lucy McLauchlan x A Bold word on pros of being an artist from Fame Fest's Angelo

“Luckily, everybody in the neighborhood was super kind and into the painting so that nobody called the police,” confirms Angelo, Fame Fest organizer. “They were offering us drinks and food all the time and they all helped us a lot.”

“Once she finished this one [above], we decided to go for this smaller and totally illegal one [below].”

“She painted it in just two days and again, all the people in the district were really happy and friendly. They would come down with cold drinks and chat to us, commenting this or that piece and showing great participation.”

“I guess I can say that people in Grottaglie are finally realizing what this all is about, we’re just doing beautiful paintings around. There are still dickheads who would bother us but we’re definitely going in the right direction here. That makes me happy.

“A huge thank you to Lucy for being so cool all the time and to Claudia and her family for helping us and offering us so much support at the big wall.

“Now, to go back on the artists pulling out topic, it’d be nice for everybody to finally realize that there is no point being jealous of artists, it just looks like they are more free then we all are but that’s a massive lie! Few of them are, few others could be, but for my personal experience, most of them are work-slaves as we all are.

“The best thing in being an artist is that you’re doing what you like to do all the time, but sometimes you have a boss as everybody else; your gallerists, the art market, they’ll drive you crazy if you’re not able to walk back and think. You can even get as far as seeing yourself as your own boss and wow, that’s the point where you should start hating yourself.

“To get to a point, I’d say that the only way artists are more free then the rest of the world is through this weird common idea that an artist is an artist and as an artist he/she can be crazier then the rest of us, which translates to: I’m an artist, I can do what I want, I will fuck with you all. Yeah right, fuck it!”